Nielsen: Android's Lead On iOS Plateaus, Data Usage Spikes

0

According to Neilsen’s May survey, not much has changed by way of smartphone operating systems in the past month. Android, iOS and BlackBerry OS are at a standstill, posting the same market share numbers they did last month. Android still controls 36 percent of the market, with iOS trailing at 27 percent, and BlackBerry OS rounding out the top three with a 22 percent market share. Down at the bottom of the barrel, HP’s WebOS, Nokia’s Symbian, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone maintained their single-digit market shares from last month, with Windows Phone leading at 9 percent.

Though nothing’s changed in terms of market share, data usage has certainly spiked. Around 75 percent of those Android/iPhone owners surveyed downloaded apps within the last 30 days, almost half listened to streaming music or mobile radio on their phone, and a little over a third of surveyed users watched mobile television. iPhone data consumption barely beat out Android in each of those categories, but according to the survey, Android users consume more data on average.

Nielsen’s analysis of the nearly 65,000 cellphone bills in the U.S. found that Android users download an average of 582 MB of data each month, whereas iPhone owners download about 492 MB.